UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW

Degrees of BEng, MEng & MSc

James Watt School of Engineering

Thermal Engineering 4 (ENG4179)

Thursday 8th December 2022

13:30 – 15:30 (GMT)

Attempt ALL Questions

TOTAL MARKS AVAILABLE

100

The numbers in square brackets in the right-hand margin indicate the marks allotted to the
part of the question against which the mark is shown. These marks are for guidance only.

Data sheets are included at the end of the exam paper

THERMODYNAMIC PROPERTIES DATA BOOKLET SUPPLIED SEPARATELY

An electronic calculator may be used provided that it does not have a facility for either
textual storage or display, or for graphical display.

Continued overleaf
Page 1 of 6
Q1

A standard Vapour Compression Refrigeration system, shown in Figure Q1, operates with
R134a as the refrigerant providing cooling at -10 oC to a supermarket during summer. The
outside environment temperature is as high as 40 oC. The mass flow rate of the refrigerant is
1.8 kg/s.

Figure Q1
a) Draw the Temperature-Entropy diagram of the system (include Point 1, Point 2, Point
3, Point 4, refrigerant saturation line on the drawing).
[5]
b) With the help of Thermodynamic Properties Table of R134a, find the enthalpy
conditions of each state. (Note, Linear Interpolation method needed).
[7]
c) Calculate the compressor power.
[2]
d) Calculate the condensation energy from the condenser.
[2]
e) Calculate the system’s COP (Coefficient of Performance).
[3]
f) Calculate the quality X at the outlet of expansion valve (Point 4)
[3]
g) Calculate the entropy at the outlet of expansion valve (Point 4)
[3]

Continued overleaf
Page 2 of 6
Q2
A vapour compression cycle shows in Figure Q2, operating as a heat pump mode, with R134a
as the refrigerant for a small house utilisation. Selected enthalpy conditions are included in
Table Q2. A typical small house requires 8 kW heat capacity provided from the heat pump.

Table Q2. Enthalpy conditions.

State 1 2 3 5 6 8
h (kJ/kg) 400 415 410 435 300 280

Figure Q2

a) Draw the Pressure–Enthalpy diagram of the above system including each point on the
diagram (including the refrigerant saturation line).
[4]
b) What is the function of the Flash Tank in Figure Q2?
[1]
c) Calculate the mass flowrate of Compressor II (kg/s).
[4]
d) Calculate the mass flowrate of Compressor I (kg/s).
[4]
e) Calculate the enthalpy condition at Point 4 (kJ/kg).
[4]
f) What is the COP (Coefficient of Performance) of this heat pump?
[6]
g) Calculate the thermal energy absorbed from the evaporator.
[2]

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Q3
(a) Fuel at the end of compression stroke of an internal combustion (IC) engine is immediately
ignited, and the duration of combustion in terms of the engine’s crank angle is considered to
be 45°. The necessary dataset for the engine is given as in Table Q3 below.

i. Calculate the fuel mass burn fraction (f) to reach the combustion pressure of 60 bar at
a volume of 42 cm3.
[6]
(b) At this fuel mass burn fraction (f),

i. Determine the engine’s angular distance using the ignition and burn parameter of 2
and 5 respectively.
[6]
ii. Determine the combustion temperature.
[4]
iii. If the initial mass of fuel is 1.1 g, calculate the unburned mass of fuel.
[3]
iv. Finally, if the combustion rate constant is controlled at 1.2×10-5 mol/m3.s, calculate
the activation energy of the combustion process.
[6]

Table Q3: IC engine’s design, operating and combustion conditions

At the end of compression stroke
Pressure 20 bar
Temperature 120°C
Volume 35 cm3
At the end of combustion
Pressure 45 bar
Volume 81cm3
Polytropic index 1.25
Engine operating speed 1800 rpm

Parameters for Arrhenius Equation

Pre-exponential factor, A = 45000 mol/m3.s
Gas Constant, R = 8.314472 J/mol K
Exponent, b = 0

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Page 4 of 6
Q4
(a) Hydrogen is combusted with dry air in a combustion chamber (Figure Q4) under the
stoichiometric condition.

Air
Hydrogen Exhaust
8 mm 10 cm

50 cm
Figure Q4

i. Write down the stoichiometric chemical reaction.

[4]
ii. Determine the air-to-fuel ratio (AF) of the combustion system.
[4]
iii. At a Reynolds number of 500, determine the velocity and mass flow rate of
hydrogen.
[4]
iv. Finally, determine the reaction rate of hydrogen combustion.
[5]

(b) The combustion process might produce NO emission through the thermal route as below
(where the variables have their usual meaning):

i. Derive an equation for the rate formation of NO and mention its reaction order.
[4]

ii. Briefly explain how the NO emission could be minimised.

[4]

Table Q4: Properties of air and hydrogen

Hydrogen Density=0.0838 kg/m3, viscosity = 0.88 × 10-5 kg/(m·s)
Air Density=1.225 kg/m3, viscosity = 1.81 × 10-5 kg/(m·s)

Continued overleaf
Page 5 of 6
 Ideal Gas Property Tables

Ideal Gas Properties for CO2 H2 O N2 CO O2

End of question paper

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